“Save, save, save,” is the message from one North-East finance expert, who warns more of us will be forced to take odd jobs and spend the children’s inheritance as pensioners if we don’t.
Nick Straker, at Lycetts Financial Services, independent financial advisers in Newcastle, said: “I think we are all going to see this in the future.
“The benefits that people think they have got probably aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. You build up a pension fund like a savings account. Of course, that’s been decimated because most are linked to investment markets.
“As well as existing pension funds being worth less, people are losing the savings habit.
“We talk to a lot of young people who have not made provision for a pension and the state pension is not guaranteed for the future.
“The state pension has already moved for women from being paid at 60 to 65, and there is talk of it being moved back to 70. The state pension is not going to provide enough for people and the decline in pension funds means private pensions have been hit.
“The only people who have come out okay are those in final salary pensions.
“The employer has had to take up any shortfall and that is why so many of them are pulling out of final salary pension schemes. There are fewer and fewer of them around.”
He said pension funds had been hit by the Government’s moves to make the Bank Of England independent and the target set for a 2.5pc interest rate, which had led the Bank of England to cut rates affecting the value of annuities.”
He added: “The awful realisation is that people are going to have to work longer.
“I would lay reasonable money on the fact that the state pension is going to be moved to 70 and that there will be a means-tested element to it.”
